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Evaluation <br />Why evaluate? <br />Evaluation is an important component of any Safe Routes to School effort. Not only does evaluation measure a <br />program's reach and impact on a school community, it can also ensure continued funding and provide a path <br />forward for ongoing and future efforts. Evaluation can measure participation and accomplishments, shifts in <br />travel behavior, changes in attitudes toward bicycling and walking, awareness of the Safe Routes to School <br />program, and/or the effectiveness of processes or programs. <br />Safe Routes to School evaluation is beneficial in the following ways: <br />• Indicates whether your SRTS efforts are paying off. Evaluation can tell you what's working well, <br />what's not, and how you can improve your program in the future. <br />• Allows you to share your programs impact with others. Evaluation can demonstrate the value of <br />continuing your program, with school faculty and administration, the district, parents, and elected <br />officials. <br />• Provides a record of your efforts to serve as institutional memory. The nature of Safe Routes to School <br />teams is that they change over time, as parents and their children move on to other schools and as <br />staff turns over. Recording and evaluating your efforts provides vital information to future teams. <br />• Tells you if you are reaching your goals. Evaluation can confirm that you are accomplishing or <br />working towards what you set out to do. on the other hand, evaluation efforts can reveal that there is <br />a mismatch in your efforts and your goals or that you need to correct course. <br />• Encourages continued funding for Safe Routes to School programs. Data collected and shared by local <br />programs can influence decisions at the local, state and national level. In part, today's funding and <br />grant programs exist because of the evaluations of past programs. <br />Basics of Evaluation <br />At a minimum, SRTS evaluation should include the standard classroom hand tallies and parent surveys <br />expected in order to be consistent with the national Safe Routes to School program. Evaluating the programs <br />can - and should where possible - delve beyond this, but it need not be burdensome. Evaluating the program <br />can be as simple as recording what you did and when you did it, and counting or estimating the number of <br />students who participated or were reached. Recording planning efforts and taking photos is also helpful for <br />the legacy of the program. In most cases, it is beneficial to measure more, such as school travel mode split <br />and/or miles walked/biked, from which the school, district or city can estimate environmental, health, and <br />other impacts. <br />There are two kinds of information that can be collected: quantitative data (numbers, such as counts, logs, and <br />survey results) and qualitative data (words/images, such as observations, interviews, and records). Further, <br />there are several different ways to collect information. This includes the following: <br />1. Conducting tallies/counts <br />2. Keeping logs (such as for mileage tracking) <br />3. Conducting surveys and interviews <br />4. Conducting observations and audits <br />5. Keeping planning and process records <br />28 1 Wilshire Park Elementary School Safe Routes to School Plan <br />